nkel follows the second ever treat on c- max next, a discussion of the state of american education. then connecticut governor donal malloy talks about early childhood education programs in his state. speaksan manuel santos about his country' trade agreement with the u.s.. >> in a recent ranking of students around the world, the u.s. failed to score in the top 20 of reading, math, and science. randi weingarten says that that is because the u.s. has a higher poverty rate than other developed countries. hour.s just over one >> our guest is randi weingarten, president of the american federation of teachers. this is her first visit with the

group. she got an early look at the joys of helping children learn to turn mother was a teacher. she earned degrees from cornell university and a law degree from cardozo school of law. she worked at a wall street law form -- law firm for several years. she taught in brooklyn while serving as counsel for the president of the united federation of teachers. she served as president for 12 years before her election as a ft president in 2008. that ends the biographical portion of the program. as always, we are on the record here. please no live blogging retweeting or other means of filing well this is underway. there is no embargo on the breakfast. our friends at c-span have agreed not to air video of the session until one hour after the broadcast is over to give reporters time to file.

give me a nonthreatening signal and i will call on one and all. low on the subtleties scale, but nonthreatening anyway. he nonthreatening is what i'm concerned about. we will offer our guests the opportunity to make some opening comments and then we will move around the table. >> first of all i just want to say thank you for all of you for being here. and thank you for letting me engage in this give-and-take with everyone. can you hear me? i am an asthmatic. when i am sitting instead of standing, i have to actually really use my lungs. it is an interesting -- i riff on that a little bit, because it is interesting when i start talking about things like health

services, i know from my own teenage years that the days i was having a hard time breathing, i was having a hard time in school. the days that i could actually read well, i was more focused. when i start talking about things like wraparound services and health services, it is very primal to me -- help services, to.day, it is the day after today, it is the day after pisa day. i am sure that most of you filed some stories about pisa and five the sky falling. i thought and good reporting and i want to thank all of you for that. we've been through this rodeo before. it is the third or fourth time that pisa results have had some

real combustion in the united states. having that data is really good. what is it say, that the united states is pretty much at the back of the pack for mathematics and science for the first time in 10 years. it has two or three things. number one it says that things like poverty, social economics matter. if you look at the state like massachusetts and connecticut that the well, and what they've done, and you look at the data when you pull it out and try to account for poverty, you see where the statistics are. there's more to this. if you just stop there, we are in the inane debate that we have

been for the last 20 years. the issue is, not whether poverty matters, but we'll can we do about it? -- what can we do about it? the dominant educational strategy that we've used over the last 10 years is "no child left behind." that has been the dominant educational strategy. there've also been charter schools in competition and new standards, but that is the hyper testing, the sanctioning of teachers. that is the dominant strategy. what we have learned from the last set of results is that that strategy does not work to move the needle. it takes us where we are, but it is not what works to move the needle. that is when you start looking at, what are the other countries

doing that allow them to outlast us? what do they do? i and not suggesting that we be similar. i am not suggesting that we should be shanghaied. but the united states is different and we have to look at some of the things that they have done and say, can we adapt that here? let me explain four things and then i will go to what we are trying to do to accomplish that. >> you have four minutes more. >> that is ok. number one, the countries that outcompete us, they actually really value, and deeply respect and value, public education. the pisa results -- i'm saying that to my friends who are examiners, they have a big caution flag about the data.

it is important to look at, but they have a big caution flag about choice and competition. that has increased segregation and poverty. in countries like chile, they've used it at the dominant education theory. number two, they are preparing teachers, supporting teachers, giving them time to collaborate. as tom friedman has seen in shanghai and has written about. number three, parents are really engaged. parents are really engage not just in terms of being told what to do, but they are very engaged. number four, the common core matters. standards matter. but they must be done the right way, not just thrown out there and told to go do it. it must be implemented well. you see that in countries that outcompete us. poverty matters, but we have to lead with equity investments and equity strategies in order to address that.

things like prekindergarten, like wraparound services that is what it says. the bottom line is, what do you do about it? there are a whole bunch of groups, including our union and other groups. there is a group of community partners, parents, who actually started talking about this for the last two or three years. we have what we call now the "principles for unity." we plan to reclaim public education, not as it is today, not as it was 50 years ago, but to be something that fulfills our collective responsibility for individual opportunity for all kids. that means, doing things such as, having well-prepared teachers. if teachers are well prepared

and if they are supported, and if they still cannot do their job, they should not be there. but we should have fair of valuations. we also have to have standards. i am a big believer in the common core, but they have to be implemented right. we have to do what california has done. suspend testing for the time being so we can actually prepare and make these work. number three, we have to focus on poverty and how we ensure that kids have a level length field. the pre-k programs, the wraparound programs, every school that works, every district it works, we have to focus and make sure that those schools are welcoming, safe environments. welcoming, safe, and collaborative environments. you cannot show me a school that works or a district or a state or a country that works where the notion of collaboration as opposed to competition, the

notion of a welcoming, safe environment so that schools are central to the community, are not the dominant theory as opposed to testing and sanctioning. that is what we are trying to do. solutions that are aligned with what communities need. we must rate neighborhood schools and try to make sure that public education is a hallmark of democracy and a propeller of our economy. most importantly, we must really make sure that we figure out how to enable all kids to have the opportunity to not only dream big, but achieve them. >> thank you. let me ask you one or two and then we will go to kimberly to start. let me ask you about the common core standards.

you said, you think that obamacare is bad and the implementation of the common core is far worse. who is to blame and anyone stepping up to fix this? >> i am not a big believer in this. i am a union leader and i could easily say, this one, this one, this one. if we are not rolling up our sleeves and actually engaging, then we are in the same debate over who cares about kids. i care about kids, no, i care about kids. that is a debate we are having. let me just say, this is what i think is happened. we do education policy by precedent.

i think the governor and the state she's right about saying, let's figure out a set of standards that are aligned to what kids need to know about the global economy. they move pretty fast about it. we were engaged with them and brought a lot of teachers to critique the materials and things like that. that is what matters. the public was not involved, parents were not involved, districts were not involved. it felt like, because of the speed at which it went, and because the federal government incentivized through race to the top. -- the race to the top, it became toxic. as it starts rolling out in a lot of communities and a lot of states, a person like john kane will stay to districts, you must implement. near to date has been through a

tax cap. a lot of other budget cuts. the things that teachers actually need to do, work together, use the standard as a guideline on a straitjacket, have curriculum, method not happen. in a couple places it did, in a lot of places it did not. the big mistake that both the federal government made and other people, -- king would say to you, i was sick and tired of telling people what to do and then not doing it. that is not your job to tell people what to do. your job is to help navigate people through this again actual ship. consequently, lester new york, there were in elementary schools these tests. a lot of people were not prepared.

john king in and meryl tisch said the test results would be 30% less net's year than this year. the question is, how did they actually know the exact number? it creates teachers draft. you can actually figure out what the cut scores were and how to align it. between the lack of preparation for teachers, the lack of communication with parents, and the sense that you are using the data, using the kids' data, and you know exactly where the scores will come in. this year, what has happened is that because people did not fail the test, they do not have enough funding for actually real implementation. the state put something called "engage new york" on the website. some of the stuff is really good.

some of it is not. if you go to a teacher, think about it. if you say, here's the website and here are 500 pages, just do it. it is a huge instructional shift. it is not about rogue memorization, but critical thinking, helping kids persevere, helping kids get through it. that is why there are a lot of ways of saying that it was not done in a way that teachers trusted. parents did not embrace that, and you have to think about this is a huge new instructional shift. >> kimberly? >> do you anticipate that labor will, early? -- come out early? >> hillary clinton is someone that my union has supported for everything a job that she is either run for or sought. when she ran for senate in york

state, we were out there and very supportive. when she ran for president in 2008, we were out there in support of. i think it is far too early to talk about any of this. the last i heard, she had not even decided whether she was running or not. i think it is too premature. frankly, there's is a lot of work we have to do between now and 2014, 2015. we are spending our time trying to figure out how to reclaim the promise of public education and figure out how quality health care is something that all americans have and getting through the ups and downs of obamacare. i'm glad we fight is working better now. we need to work on affordable college, making sure there is retirement security or all -- for all. there is a lot of work to do the between now and 2015. >> i would like to get your

thoughts on what happened and to treat yesterday. -- detroit yesterday. i am curious what you heard from your members in michigan about their concerns on their pensions. >> i think the ruling is very troubling morally and -- my lawyer had on, which i do occasionally, i think it is wrong legally. obviously it will be appealed. let me talk about why i think it is wrong morally first. the pensions and the benefit plans are deferred wages. whether you look at the people in detroit or the people in

illinois because we have also seen the illinois state legislature basically hugely cut pensions in the last 24 hours as well. pensions are people actually pay into their pension. in detroit, in illinois, people have paid 9.0% per year. 80% of those do not have social security. this is their only retirement security. in detroit, the average pension is about $19,000. as i said, people contribute to it. what happened is that the deferred wages that people expected to get and need very much for retirement security, all of a sudden they do not have them at a period of time when they need them.

what happened in this country is that as people are getting older and older, instead of having more retirement security, we have retirement insecurity. i heard people at the aarp joke that the new name for retirement is to get a job. if you are in your 70's or 80's and you're paying for your parents or paying for your kids, my sister and i every month give my father a check. my father worked as an engineer and had very little retirement security because of that. he got laid off at one point or another and the pension that he has is very meager. we give him a check every month to try to make up for that. what does this mean? locally, in united states of america, the average amount that

someone has saved if they are the breadwinner, meaning between ages 45-64, is $12,000. not $12,000 annually, but they have essentially $12,000 and social very. -- social security. what are we going to do about this 10 years from now? what are we going to do about this at a country in 10 or 20 years from now? what other countries have done is that they actually made retirement security a collective responsibility as a post to an employer responsibility. what we're seeing is that fewer and fewer people have it, not more. that is why i think we have a huge moral issue.

the legal issue, the banks in detroit were able to work out what they needed to work out before the bankruptcy. it is the people of detroit who served in detroit who are now subject to the bankruptcy. the people who actually created some of this recklessness were there deals out beforehand. that i think is both immoral -- a moral and a legal issue. one of the issues that this ruling raises is about the import of contracts being inviolate under the u.s. constitution. that is why i'm saying there are a bunch of different issues here. i am really troubled by it. we cannot have a race -- this kind of environment in this

country. austerity, austerity, austerity. trickle-down economics. they do not create a growing economy. the new pope has spoken out about this. when our country had a burgeoning middle class, it was because we had a shared prosperity. >> how many members you have in detroit and how many you have in illinois? >> i could if -- i'm going to give you a very rough guess. in detroit, we have about 3000- 4000 members. in michigan, we have about 15,000 members. in illinois, we have about probably about somewhere around 40,000 members. maybe 50,000 members. >> 19,000 members? >> that is the average retirement that someone gets.

the average retirement that a public employee gets around the country is about what he 4000-20 $6,000. -- 24,000-20 $6,000. anytime anyone spends a dollar of their pension, it creates two dollars and change in economic output in the community. are we going to have a progrowth, pro-investment, pro- middle-class economy? or are we going to keep having this trickle-down austerity economy. that is the real question here. in both ways as be a lot of lawsuits.

the last thing i will say that illinois this as well, and why i think illinois in particular is political as opposed to economic. last year, the union in illinois, led by the illinois federation of teachers, the unions in illinois actually negotiated with the state senate i pension package that creative roughly the same -- created roughly the same amount. that package went nowhere. instead, this one, which is actually taking -- remember what i said. this is now basically cutting annual cost-of-living increases that retirees had going forward. it is about 100,000. >> we will go to another question. your hand signal is so subtle. we will go to you after this. >> on the same subject, do you

have an idea of some other countries' and their collective responsibilities? everyone is worried about social security crashing and a lot of people will elect by the side of the road. what would you do question mark what would you do? >> i think two or three things. we have done this report. the afc did a report a few years ago. employees have to take a share of retirement responsibilities. we agree that we have to pay into our retirement. most of these plants that you see that have been cut right now, it is because the government today pension holiday. this happened at the very same

time as the crash on wall street. you have that double whammy going in at the same time. employees have always paid in and done their responsibility. right now in america, we have social security, whatever your personal savings maybe, and i would argue for a defined pension plan. there is a group of people, people from kkr who have invested in a modest pension funds in wall street, and retiree advocates who are getting together and talking about how we should have more professionally managed funds like those investment plans. they are actually far more efficient and more accepted than

the defined contribution plans. if i could change the world, i would actually link -- d-link -- de-link pensions from employer responsibilities. you have that kind of legacy clause, like when you have right now in terms of the public sector. in the absence of that, we have to figure out how to actually help people. we have to help them get to a certain percentage of their income when they are working that they have in retirement. they should actually be able to live a life in retirement that they deserve. >> like the national 401(k) program? >> we can expand social security. frankly there'll be more and more of a question that all

people have -- while people have more and more retirement insecurity. some of us are looking at whether some of these big, defined-benefit plans that states have, can you do with australia does? people can actually then buy in or participate in. it would be more efficient. it will be a more effective way of doing things. the laughing is, we have to have a national conversation about retirement security. if we do not have that conversation right now, what is going to happen in 10 or 20 years from now? 80% of the population does not have a pension. at the same time, what we have

said in this report, and we can get you this report, is that people should pay into their pensions. there should be this three- legged stool. i will be happy to get it to you. the last thing we do, and this is something i've spent a lot of time doing, is that there is about $1.5 trillion worth of pension investments that are sitting in wall street investment houses right now. what happens if we could actually use the patient capital pension for investments in infrastructure? rebuilding america again, for creating jobs again? we have been working with the clinton global initiative and with many of the teacher funds to do this.

we have made a commitment about two years ago that we would find $10 billion worth of assets to do these kind of investments. we are halfway there. there is the new york city systems that have been invested in infrastructure. health warning systems have done the same thing. we have also done retraining for the jobs of tomorrow. we have also done a whole bunch of work in terms of energy investments. there are a lot of things you can do with this patient capital in terms of helping readers in the infrastructure. >> we are going next to sean higgins. >> one of the issues that has up in the detroit bankruptcy issues is a collection that is valued in the billions. as an educator, do you support that? >> let me just say that the educators in the city have been

under a different kind of emergency manager for a long time. the governor had the first emergency management statute, but it was done in a much more it was done of a lot of conversation back and forth in terms of the educators. frankly, our members in detroit have hugely sacrificed in the last two contracts in terms of taking pay cuts and other things amounting to four percent. -- 12%. the city school system is

working with the educators now. there've been a lot of problems. this new emergency manager has been working with the educators. they are seeing some real turnaround. i want to give them props in terms of what they have done and what they're trying to do. i grew up in rockaway county. 20 minutes away, or 30 minutes away depending on traffic. i watched new york city roughly go through the same agonizing process and make different decisions. they could've made a decision to declare bankruptcy, but they did not. they could've made the decision to sell great assets, but they did not. they made the decision, including reunions, the user pension funds to help by city bonds -- we made a decision for

the long-term viability with lots of sacrifices through the 1970's. that decision, indeed think about what is going on in york city right now, this is a city that is -- it loses life. -- it oozes life. there is a vitality now that you do not see in the rest of the world. watching the detroit decision, one has to wonder when you look at michigan, and look at the inequities in michigan, there is a great wealth and certain pieces of it, but what is happening in detroit? i do wonder why these decisions are being made this way.

detroit can be a jewel in that state. i would caution against selling the kind of assets like that art collection. >> the problem of bullying continues to grab headlines. we have had so many high-profile and tragic cases. we have seen school districts acknowledging the reality of these cases. the expense of the programs they have to institute, what are your members' feelings on these issues of what needs to be done? if they're a federal bullying legislation?

>> i am a big believer in trying to figure out policy that works as opposed to simply some kind of top-down policy is going to sit on the books and people are going to look at it as a mandate and do nothing about it. i don't think that answers your question, -- let me start this way. i'm gay. and i have had lots of -- i never talked about it for a very long time.

then i started in the middle of 2007, 2008 and i talked about it at the shul i was in. i talked about it publicly for the following reasons. after i talked about it from the pulpit that one day, i had some would seem to me teenagers, young women, come up to me, pull my sleep, this is 2007, and say to me crying, thank you for coming out. thank you for being a role model. thank you for showing me that i can belie want to be. i expect that when i grew up in the 1970's, but 2007 is not 2013 where it is cool to be gay. it is not as this -- you didn't

have to be closeted at that point in many ways. certainly in your city you do not have to. that said something to me, it said more of a bullying than anything else in my life. it said that the fear of being yourself is something that we actually really have to be mindful of every single day that we teach. that is the same for teachers and it is the same for students. the question then becomes, what do you do to actually help kids not have that fear or that anxiety? and then what you do with the bullies? we have learned a lot. we have learned -- the bullying movie that was put out, i thought it was extraordinary. the first issue is education, education, education. that intervention, intervention, intervention. eileen to have the funds for things like conflict resolution in schools and teaching teachers how to see it.

we need to teach teachers how to what to do about it. we need to have funds for intervention. some of this is stuff that we can do. some of this is stuff that we have guidance counselors and social workers in schools to enforce. some of this is how kc a how kids see a trusting adult. we have rubber bands. ours is purple and says "see a bully, -- stop a bully." if you confront a bully and tell them to stop, most of the time that will work. we have to educate and we have to confront and we have to actually pay attention to the interventions for both those were bully -- those who are believed and those who bully.

to that extent, we need the policy to make that a reality. but if the policies do not happen, it will be worse. we have worked with the administration about this. we are big promoters of the bullying movie. we have worked with the rfk foundation about this we have worked of cartoon network, we have done a lot of that stock. the second piece of your .th second piece of your question, in terms of teachers. let me just do a paen to teachers. we are in an odd place in the united states of america. you see this in terms of kids as well. teaching is so respected in other places. we are citizens of the mine. we are creating a future for

kids. yet we are still in a space where we get demonized and denigrated. remedy is attempting to split the union from teachers. why is that the teachers are more densely organized than any other employee in the united states in america? they see that it is difficult for them. we need to do a better job as unions to make sure that our members are mobilized. when you take surveys of teachers these days, you see the line going up words. they want a voice. we need to stop deprofessionalization, -- the de as well as the tools they need. if we are really to believe that they are poor.

teachers are getting piled on a nd piled on child on. any new idea, is for teachers. when they say, i cannot do this and the 500 other things you've asked me to do, then people say that is an excuse. we cannot do that to them. i have watched it in the schools, in a charter school. we cocreated it new york. it had some of the best scores in new york city in the flat the last grading. it had higher grades than many other schools. what happened in that school? we did a different kind of contract. we have a great relationship between the teachers and the principles.

we have great teachers and great principals. they do not have a set day, but they have a set number of classes. they actually teach the same material every day. they actually get to spend time at night thinking about, deeply, what they are going to teach and how they are going to teach. they have gotten a waiver that they give only one of the regions in new york city. they are focused and project- based instruction. when you talk to the teachers and the kids in the school. -- in the school, they have persistentance in college rates that could knock your socks off.

90% of hispanic kids who graduate from the school stan college. 85% of the map -- african- american kids who graduate from the school's stay in college. they are doing project-based learning. they are creating real engagement between kids and teachers. when you talk to the teachers there, they stay -- they stay. they do not have the attrition rate you see in other places. when you talk to the teachers, the teachers stay. they do not have the 50%, 80% attrition rate, and they talk about how important it is to actually teach, and you see the collaboration. >> we have about 15 minutes left. we will go to melanie, and several others. >> the administration is having labor-management art or ships, , and i am wondering what you think the biggest obstacles are to achieving this, particularly when it comes to organizing and reaching collective-bargaining contracts, and what needs to be done over this? >> well, i think austerity, austerity, austerity, austerity, austerity has really poisoned a

lot of environments because -- thank you -- but that is a whole other topic. but i also think that we don't in america -- we are more into john wayne than john dewey. john wayne gets the headlines, not john dewey. you take a school district in southern l.a. county, even through austerity, it has done extraordinarily well. actually, that is how i got to this. they solve problems. and what they have done is they have done this through the transitions of a retiring superintendent and a retiring union president. so this has really become baked into their culture. we have talked about this story to you guys a lot, and nobody

wants to write about it except in orange county. the same in terms of cincinnati, new haven. there are places, montgomery county, there are actually places where through thick and thin, when people have real respectful relationships with each other and they start thinking about how they solve problems rather than arguments, you see real collaboration and working through a bunch of issues because teaching children is complicated. so artie duncan, i give him a lot of credit. he wanted to do this management collaborative, but you actually have to change the culture to make this the norm, not the exception.

and that is what i think we need. now, this one we are focusing on the common core. so every interested party has an interest in focusing on that. but it has to be about not what the next reform is, but really how we help students success. >> i have a double-barreled political question. you mentioned it is too soon to talk about 2016. what is your focus for 2014, governors, congress, whatever? and you mention the war and plan. do you think this liberal populist direction for the democratic party can win elections outside of massachusetts, and is this an active debate for the democratic coalition now? >> ok, so when you poll the public, on things like education, jobs, people want good jobs. people want the american dream.

if you look at doug selznick's recent blog post, which i think was not in "atlantic" but it "politico"? sorry. i think it is totally right that one of the great unifying factors in this country was if you work hard, and play by a set of fairness rules, you should do ok. and our guidepost for our kids, the next generation, are they doing better than they are. that has changed. and people are really anxious about that. they want to work hard and they want to do ok. so i think there is -- when i

looked at the elections, in 2013, chris christie won in new jersey, that is true, but so did minimum wage expansion. terry mcauliffe won in virginia, walsh in boston, palacios in new york. toledo, the person who was protested education -- >> could you speak up? >> the person who was pro- education won. so there is something going on in the country that is about, yes, working hard. nobody wants a handout. but let's level the playing field so we have great public education and we have ways for people to enter or reenter or re-envision themselves.

you may call that populism, but frankly when you hear pope francis start talking about that, too, i think we have had a lot, a lot of years of trickle- down economics and austerity- based economics, and it has not turned the country around. so this level of populism, progressivism, i think, is something that people are yearning for. so we will see, but i don't see the republican party, at least in terms of the congress, i don't see that it is getting lots of hugs and kisses from people around the country. i see there is a lot of anger and a lot of anxiety that our lives are fundamentally different than what we thought they would be. so this notion of shared prosperity, investment in education, investments in infrastructure, and trying to figure out an economy that works for all i think is important. take tomorrow, fast food

workers. 100 places where fast food workers are going to be staging strikes. and who are the fast food workers now? it is no longer 18-, 19-, 20- year-old kid trying to get into college, or in college and doing this is a job. when you go to mcdonald's, when you go to walmart, you are seeing people in their 60s and 70s. this is wrong. and so i think there is a sense we will see. so, but, in terms of my belly wake, public education, on december 9 there will be over 60 events, 60 cities, counties, towns, and more coming every day, of parents, community groups, clergy, are union foundations talking about how to

do bottom up reform, solution reform, community-based reform that actually helps kids be more successful than schools. so we are seeing this community work and this bottom-up organizing in public education, as well as in economic issues. job issues. >> mr. sellwood. >> you mentioned that we should not have a race to the bottom in this country. with what we saw in detroit, is does that raise the specter because other cities could resort to bankruptcy court to get out of pension promises they have made to workers? and secondly, how do you put this in a broader perhaps context of the fights that labor has fall in recent years with

collective bargaining and pensions and perhaps the erosion of the social contract that other employees have enjoyed, which has been part of the deal for decades, and whether that is being unraveled? >> i think you are seeing ads and flows of this. in 2010, if you asked me that question, i would have quite a different answer than i have now. so, i mean, what i have seen around the country is some places like california actually start righting its economy. they passed a budget amendment two years ago, and you're seeing a huge change in terms of the california economy right now. they actually -- jerry brown took the opposite direction and said let's have a pro-growth,

pro-worker, pro-public education strategy for moving our economy along. you are seeing the same thing in some ways in massachusetts. you are seeing it in maryland. so you're seeing some states make different choices. i think what has happened in detroit is a disaster. and i think it is a disaster because when you have a city go into bankruptcy, what does that say to the rest of the country? what is that saying to the people who live in that city right now? as i said, new york made a very different decision 30 years ago, in terms of a city as a public good, not a private entity. the private assets. it is a public good. so but the other question that you raise, which is the most important question i think, is that it is an american value that if you work hard and play by the rules, the promises that

have been made to you will be kept. and the unraveling of that social contract is an unraveling of the democracy, the lockean democracy in america. and that i think is very, very, very troublesome. and particularly right now, when you see this huge disparity of income, where wall street hovers around 16,000, the highest it has ever been, yet you have the greatest income disparity that you have had well before the great depression. so not a surprise, but the labor movement, people are taking another look at it.

they are saying we actually need a collective voice. the number of people in labor has actually gone up this year. my union is actually growing. >> would it be growing without the nurses? >> well, we are the second largest nurse union, and have been organizing nurses for about 20 years. >> i mean is the teacher portion growing as well? >> even with what happened in wisconsin and what happened in indiana, the teacher piece has stayed with us. and that is after 300,000 teachers were laid off since the great recession. so i'm not giving you as succinct an answer as i would like, but people realize they need a collective voice. what we are doing in my union and with the afl-cio made the center of their convention is that union needs density. we cannot be islands. we have to be about making sure

there is economic opportunity, there is educational opportunity for all the people that we serve, that there are good public services, that there is good public education, that there is affordable higher education, and that there is quality health care. and that is our mission. you look at our mission statement, that is our mission. that is what we focus on every day. and when you do that, you are uplifting the goals. -- all boats. >> we will do the two last questions with carolyn and dan. >> what do you see in congress in terms of education laws,

either major ones were smaller things? >> the first thing i would actually like to see in congress is comprehensive immigration reform. i mean, if you look at what the senate did, there is a path there that a lot of people compromised on to create the path to citizenship plus ways of making sure that we take people out of the shadows, we grow our economy, and we make sure our borders are secure. and so first and foremost, the house of representatives needs to focus on that. and i was part of the fast for families yesterday. having been arrested on the whole process of trying to get to immigration reform and whatnot. in terms of education, this is an issue. pre-k is an issue about showing whether the results actually really matter and what the research actually really matters, or whether the congress lives in an evidence-free zone. we have seen pre-k actually works to help level the playing field.

the president has put a bill out there. the house of representatives actually have a bipartisan bill, that lies in the house of representatives and the senate, the miller-harkin bill that has two republicans from new york state. i give them huge props for being part of it, hannah and grim. that pre-k bill should sail through. if people want to make a smart investment, that should sail through but for the ideology of what the federal government should be spending. and what is sad about this, states like oklahoma, you know, have shown us that pre-k really works. so we are fighting for it. i don't really know what its prospects are. i don't feel as hopeful as i wish -- you know, as the evidence should dictate. but we are fighting, fighting,

fighting for that pre-k bill. number two, i think we could see a bill about career tech ed. i think we could see a perkins reauthorization. i think this is one of those examples when you actually see business, higher education, k- 12, and labor coming together like you did around peak tech. the peak tech school that ibm in new york city, the colleges in new york city, the new york city department of education, and our union actually put together. it got a lot of attention because the president mentioned it in the state of the union, than the president went to see it, but this is a fantastic school. it's a school where ibm has back-mapped from what the entry

position, the skills required for the interposition in ibm is, and we have put a six-year program together that also is aligned with the common core critical thinking, and every body, you go to the school, everybody loves it. so it is actually helping re- envision what career tech ed should look like in this new economy, and frankly, there is a lot of really great career tech ed schools throughout the country. toledo has one that is a terrific school, that has been aligned with gm. aviation high school in new york city, aligned with the aviation industry. transit tech in new york city. so i think there is some steam and a headwind that could actually push perkins through the gate, but it has to be formulaic. meaning we have to have a

formula for this, no more competitive grants. you cannot keep doing winners and losers in the nation when all communities really should have high-quality career tech ed. >> last question, mr. thomason. >> it seems to me, at least, that like politics, education is pretty local. and today's teachers, do you think are trained well enough to handle situations like zero- tolerance policies that are so bizarre that produce incredible incidents and publicity, kids being held up and suspended for childish things that are completely out of the norm, the lack of parental involvement in the inner cities producing what we have today, because there are not any parent sometimes. they may be grandparents, but that is about it.

how do you deal with those kinds of things on a local basis? it is all well and good to talk about national policy, but they don't really deal with what this is about. >> so one of the -- look, i often close my eyes and think about what it was like to be a student, what it was like to be a high school teacher in crown heights brooklyn, what it was like to be a local president before answer any of these questions. because you are so -- you know, the policy from 30,000 feet is really different from the reality in a schoolhouse, and a schoolyard, in the school hall. and so those experiences are the hard connections to make. but in your question, you actually answered the complexity

of what public education is. we are the first responders of poverty. we are the first responders to all of the social issues in america, and we don't actually -- our educators, whether they are the bus driver, the school secretary, guidance counselor or teacher, they never get even in the good times the training and the support that they pretty much need to deal with all of the situations that we confront. but in the times of austerity and privatization and hyper- testing, that is why they are so demoralized. but this is the amazing thing about school teachers. people go into teaching because they want to make a difference in the lives of children. and if we actually honored that heart connection, if we honored it and used it as the value it is, it is invaluable. then we could turn a lot of these things around.

because our job, whether a child has parents or one parent or has their grandparents, our job is to help all children succeed to their god-given potential. that's our job. that is part of the reason why it cannot just be our job. and it has to be a community responsibility. and that is why we actually focused on this whole notion of reclaiming the promise and this notion of focusing on not just teachers, as important as they are, and also the wraparound services, engaging curriculum about critical thinking, but also having things like music. and food. so that is why we talk of lot about wraparound services, not just health care services but breakfast, lunch, and dinner. as you see -- you're talking about this before. one of the worst things the congress is doing right now is cutting the snap program.

so when half of your kids in public education, half of our kids come to school poor, they are poor, in the south and the west, it is more than half. i'm a big believer in we have to be the best we can be as school teachers. you heard what i said before. that if somebody cannot teach, they should not be there. we have to prepare teachers like finland prepares teachers. we have to value them like singapore and china and canada values them. we have to actually have the common core, but do it right. delete testing, at least for a while, but also make sure we have art and music and the tools teachers need to help. we have have parents involved and engaged in welcoming, safe, collaborative environments, and we have to have the wraparound services because we are the first responders to poverty. and whether that is breakfast, lunch, and dinner, like i saw at the school in cincinnati, or whether it is what we're doing

at mcdowell in terms of really wrapping services around all of these schools in the eighth worst county in america, when you do those things, schools succeed. and more important, the nation succeeds. thank you. >> thank you very much. appreciate it. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [indiscernible]

>> on the next "washington today" looks at efforts to reinstate the health care law. "wall street journal" reporter

talks about the november jobs numbers. reviews vice president biden's trip to china last week and the seat of u.s.- china relations. "washington journal" is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. after war things escalate so quickly. a moment that seems so loving can just turn and slip and be so out of control. this is one of those days. adam packing to leave. she was going to his things and seeing a hidden handgun. she said what's the deal, he said it was to sell. on top of the other pressures, they had no money. she just how begun, and he ran in the room until the shotgun

and really try to jam it at her. her to goying to get some us that she would pull the trigger and kill him. --i described in the book, said me that afterwards, she wanted to. >> sunday night at eight on c- span's "q and a" w.ith connecticut's governor daniel mccoy spoke as week about efforts to focus on early education to close the gate -- gap.

>> good afternoon, everyone. we will go ahead and get started. how are you doing this afternoon? i am director of education policy studies at the american enterprise institute. welcome all of you for this promising and intriguing conversation with connecticut governor dan malloy. i am delighted to have you here with us and those of you watching at home on live stream or on c-span 2. the hashtag is #ctedreform. we are going to be going for an hour. the format will be pretty straightforward. first, the governor has been kind enough to agree to share some thoughts on the do's and don'ts of school reform in connecticut. what are some of the lessons they have learned? i will have an opportunity to

chat with the governor for 15 or 20 minutes. we will open it up for conversation and q&a. governor malloy was first elected in 2010. took office in january of 2011. he is connecticut's first democratic governor in 20 years. upon taking office, he faced the largest per capita deficit in the country. total debt of about three point -- $3.5 billion. he did several terms as mayor of stamford, connecticut, promising to make 2012 the year of education. in connecticut, he tackled a reform agenda in a state that has long been known for one of the nation's widest racial achievement gaps.

the governor took the lead in passing one of the nation's more dramatic education bills. it was public act 12116. some of the packages required a new teacher evaluation pilot in which 45% will be based on student learning. the governor's package created a commissioner's network similar to the recovery school district. it has the ability to take authority over 25 of the state's lowest performing schools. today, 11 have been entered into that network. an increased charter school funding. the figure will go to $11,500 by fiscal 2015. with that, let me turn the microphone over to the governor.

it is all you. [applause] >> it is great to be with you. i appreciate the opportunity to speak about an issue that is very dear to my heart. i like to talk about what really needs to happen in the united states and put it into an appropriate context. we have been at the business of educating on a public basis for a long time. if you look at the rhetoric that is frequently used around education issues, it is old rhetoric. it is about giving the children the opportunity to loom -- learned.

learn. the distribution of opportunity is what we usually measure our success by. where else would you hold yourself as successful for offering a trot up for sale that no one bought two? a substantial percentage for people. in education, we had this idea that we need to operate -- offer the opportunity to all of our students to learn. that did not pay attention to the deficits that they might have come to school with, did not take into consideration issues like poverty, family alignment. we kept merrily going down the same road. until it really became quite apparent that in the united states we were failing to get the job done. most starkly, in comparison to test scores, all of a sudden, we found out that not only are we

not leading, we are far behind. that will have a long-term impact on the economy. it was this belief that we have to get out of opportunity sharing into success sharing that has driven much of what i talk about on education. therefore if you start to think , about that, it changes your whole view of education. i did step into a situation with one of the largest achievement gaps along racial lines. that is the reality in connecticut. we have high highs and very low lows. in many cases, they are in at joining zip codes. -- adjoining zip codes.

we needed to do something about that. we need to hold ourselves accountable for what we are doing. i have to say that i am envious of teachers. their ability to impact on an intergenerational basis the , young people and the families is this unbelievable gift that many have accepted as their calling. none of us are perfect, the reality is the state of connecticut is filled with teachers working very hard to get it right. they are demonstrating a

willingness to change methods, a fundamental change being embraced in the state of connecticut. we have to realize that teachers need the resources to be ready to do what they have to do. we are asking a lot more of them and it is one of the reasons why in the state of connecticut, we have gone in a different direction than many states across the country. we are adding funds to education. we are concentrating a lot of that money on the lowest performing school district in connecticut. the 30 lowest performing school districts are getting the bulk of the money. it is by agreement on how that money is going to be spent. is making sure that additional dollars will drive additional achievement in those low- performing districts.

i'm also fond of saying that this is very much about changing our habits. when we sat down and looked at all of our school districts and looked at those low performing districts, in almost every one of those, there was at least one outstanding school. severalal of them, outstanding schools. we are more likely to repeat our failures than we are our successes. to put it a different way, we are more likely to explain away our successes as a way of adding some psychological support. that is a mindset that has to change. as rick mentioned we are doing , that. not only do we have an alliance,

but we also founded a commissioners network where we are empowered to work with that 25 lowest performing schools. schools are applying because we have interventions. different styles of turnaround. we have some additional funds to pay for the turnaround of those schools. we have a school in new haven which is run by the teachers. a new experimental model which is showing great success. we have another school in bridgeport with a different model of operations. a very great degree of involvement by its teachers union. it is not a one-size-fits-all assumption when it comes to turning around the low performing schools. it is a lot of attention, a little bit of handholding and

simply getting people on board and bringing them along. what you find out when you intervene in a school is that people really do want to do better. they have not necessarily seen the road that will allow them to do that so they will keep their heads down. once you give them the ability to lift their head and see at target and to make progress and measure that target, it is engaged in by more people than you might otherwise assume. this cannot be viewed simply as a pre-k problem. 12 problem. it is a pre-k issue and it is also a college issue. we have failed to properly prepare. we are retiring machinist faster than we are creating personnel for those operations. you have to make a significant change.

pre-k, k-12, higher education, things we are spending a lot of our time on trying to turn around and make work. how do you do it? you have to get a buy-in by all of the stakeholders. that includes teachers. i have artie mentioned that they have a great responsibility and job in our democracy to raise , the next generation, but we also need parent buy- in's. i am also fond of saying that you are not going to get as much buy-in by parents, who you have poorly educated yourself. that is a certain reality. we have intergenerational failure that we have to turn

around. giving parents new tools to change their behaviors is very important. it is true that we have to work with the teachers. as rick mentioned, a new system of evaluation is now being implemented in the state of connecticut. that does not happen easily, it is not an easy thing to get done. the reality is that well before the package that we passed legislatively, work had already begun on what the new of violation system was -- would look like. that was actively participated in by administrators. that does not make a rollout any easier. there is a lot of confusion. i had a discussion with my sister and one of my sister-in- law's yesterday and she was complaining that to get all of her data onto the system took her about three hours to do. i reminded her, once that is in, it is in.

i understood that three hours is a lot of time to spend, but once we start this program, it it will be the new way of doing things. what is so very important is that we win teachers over. i believe that we are making progress. the jargon and the discussion being used by our two unions are very important with respect to what is going on. embracing the kind of change that we have to embrace. i have previously rest -- $5 million is being invested in education, but above and beyond, we are investing $24 million additionally in technology. one of the things that amazes me about education and government

in general, and if you look at the rollout of obamacare you understand that our underinvestment in technology cripples us. core,move towards common having districts that don't have on commonlogy to test core was one we needed to address. common core was decided on before i was governor of the state of connecticut. i was not one of the founders of the concept. i embrace it. more importantly than my embracing of it, based on scholastic poll -- 72% of teachers embrace it. really about 2% rejected. -- reject it. the remaining folks are undecided about the issue. those teachers who have thought about it and studied it and have been doing their preparatory

work are getting it and do believe that concentrating on fewer things, but going deeper is the right way to go. you have the legislative package. you have a new common core. you have a new evaluation system. i understand that people think they are trying to drink out of a firehose in the state of connecticut. it is not easy. that has to be made clear. once we get through this, we are going to have a clear road to higher achievement in our schools. we will get away from this concept that we have an obligation to distribute opportunity. and hold ourselves responsible and school districts where we are failing to graduate 40% of our. that is true in several of our lowest performing school districts. we need to hold ourselves, the

governor, the mayors, the parents, the teachers, and to hold ourselves accountable for what is going on in our schools. we are investing a lot of money. and our stay, we are investing a lot of additional money but we need to hold ourselves accountable and that is what i am trying to do. i think we will sit down and take some questions. [applause] >> let's get this microphone going. last week, you may have seen "s stephanie simon wrote a much discussed story. the obama administration has supported, teacher evaluation,

school turnarounds. many of the things you just hit upon. are there particular points that have been surprising or more severe? >> i think that there is a reality. in one of your articles, he came to some of the same conclusions. it is hard. it is hard in a state like connecticut that had taken a backseat on school reform for a long. of time. a juxtaposition between massachusetts and connecticut, both leaders and education for a long. of time. massachusetts had been on school reform for about 12 years before we got involved. their graduation rate went up at a time when ours went down by one 1.8%. we have turned that around already on the graduation rate. they have implemented a lot of things.

when it comes to doing common core and making adjustments to some of the improvements, they have an easier life than we do. we are trying to do a lot more in a much shorter period of time. it is extremely complicated. it is not complicated because the teachers did anything wrong. it not competent because the political infrastructure intentionally did anything wrong, but by not coming to the table, it is rather like drinking out of a firehose. new way of distributing as distributing an additional amount of you want to dollars. hold people accountable. you want to to institute the common core. doing that all at once is a hard job. >> one of the places that has

much tension as their it -- is anywhere was over new teachers systems evaluations. metrics was a factor. i am curious how that has played out. where do you have questions about how effectively this is being done? >> there are concerns of some teachers parts. you're going from something that they were contra worth -- comfortable with to something that maybe will take some additional time. having said that, we have studied a lot of these changes in other states. that first year is always difficult. once people get on board, they understand it is not a risk for them.

as a point of fact the vast , majority of our teachers and school systems are doing a great job. they will be recognized as doing a great job. we need to hold ourselves accountable. one of the ways to do that is to measure student achievement. to use that as a tool to understand how we are doing. ed koch would ask people how he was doing. we did not do that in education. now we are doing it. >> what do you say to teachers who say, this is putting more weight on math tests and this is distorting the purpose of schooling? >> i have probably used to some of that rhetoric myself over the past 18 years. a concern about the reliance on testing. when you probe it -- there is

nobody teaching third grade spelling without doing a test every friday. there is nobody is teaching mathematics without holding a kid accountable for doing a test every wednesday. we do test. i think what we are really talking about is using tests for different purposes. it is like using a test for a mirror. you have to look yourself in the face. that is scary. it is hard. you need to work with your stakeholders, your teachers, representatives, administrators. connecticut was working on what that would look like. one union called for immediate implementation of the system even before we started the process.

all of us in education, whether it is on the political side, on the union representation, have to speak about this a little bit more clearly. we need to have an honest and frank conversation about what we are getting at and we have to make sure that we do not simply teach the test. that's why i think an emphasis on critical thinking is so very important. >> in light of thinking about the role of the test, the president of the american federation of teachers has expressed concern that in new york that with states transitioning to be, and cortes, -- transitioning to the common core tests, they are ruling out teacher of valuation systems that teachers will wind up being evaluated -- i am curious how you think of that challenge.

do you think it is a real concern? >> i think it is a real concern. i think all of those things are true. unionsith one of the two i cannot remember which one, , they talked about how many teachers they have counseled out of teaching. they have worked on making sure that people know where they fit in the world. i think they get it. if connecticut had done some of these things years before, what you just described would not be so difficult. this is what we are doing to try to make it a little bit different area we are giving time to implement. this will not change overnight. the mechanics of what we are doing change, but we are giving people time to get used to the new system. we are giving options to our school districts about what tests they want to offer this year. with the common core test coming

in, we have to get a third of the districts to use that and we said hey, you want to use connecticut standard tests, you can use those. you wanted -- you want to use the new testing protocol, use that. we do not want to make you use both. so make a choice. overwhelmingly they moved to the common core test. they are ready for it. the school boards are ready for it. that doesn't believe you are not afraid. it does not mean it is not a challenge. it means you have more dialogue and work on it closely together. far better a caret than a stick. rot than a stick. eight -- >> a number of folks have commended the new haven teacher agreement.

at the state level, how does this play out? are there lessons there that you are able to build upon you go -- upon? >> one of the alternatives was the new haven school district. at the end of may, they told every freshman that they were not going to advance that year. every one of them. now they gave them a roadmap. they are all invited back to the school and they are given a roadmap to advancement, and some of them are advancing back to class level. that was a decision made by teachers. randi weingarten has been very active in new haven, getting to the point where there is a higher degree of engagement. it does not mean there are not a lot of people worried about change. they are there.

you are seeing more people embracing that change. >> on the common core, which you talked -- touched on a little bit. it was adopted by numerous states by -- with little discussion back in 2010. we know that 68% of adults have never heard of this thing, but we have seen an explosion of attention and concern. from your perch what kinds of , concerns have you heard in the state of connecticut, and how are you trying to address those? >> you cannot look at this in a vacuum. there are those who try to make a political argument. the political argument runs that those people in washington have caused this to happen, and we should resist as well as we can implementation of common core.

it runs in the face of reality. that is a bunch of them got , -- a bunch of governors got together and decided in a worldwide competition we were not doing very well, and we were not educating our children to the level we needed to remain competitive. it had almost nothing to do with the federal government at the outset. designing the curriculum, but now is being attacked as if barack obama himself came up with this common core. i will use the numbers by survey in connecticut, 72% of teachers, we are talking about math, science, literacy -- embrace it. will think it- 3%

will lead to lower or worse results. others are not taking up position. when you have that embracing of a concept and teachers and administrators have had the time to look at what people want to emphasize, they are moving in the right direction. we are certainly seeing that in connecticut. there is no large-scale movement to delay or abandon our common core. i think there is a ignition that we need to hold ourselves accountable for success. >> as you think about the common core, what are the key strengths? is there anything about the implementation you are nervous about? >> the key things, to reiterate, is the fewer things, but deeper. the ability to use those things we are learning successfully. whether it is in support of critical thinking or in mathematics being able to answer

properly, i think that is the real strength. i think one-size-fits-all has not been working particularly well. we will expose everyone to everything in the hopes that it will catch someone's fancy and they will devote the rest of their lives to the one thing you gave them a snapshot of in the education system. that was not working as well as it needed to on an international basis for the united states. we decided to go deeper, fewer, and an emphasis on critical thinking. >> what are the keys going to be to make sure the vision of changed instruction is delivered upon? >> we have schools and school districts that don't have the

technology to deliver it as well as they could. that is why we stepped forward and announced $24 million in additional upgrades. at the same time it was recognized those school districts are making some of their own investments as well. we want to support. another thing we have done, for the first time we are budgeting state dollars for continuing education, as we urge people to change their approach to continuing education. you come to the auditorium and make everyone here the same lecture, the chance for a real discussion between teachers and those leading the discussion. we are trying to change that as well to be supportive of the broader and larger change we want to see made across the state.

>> how much per pupil are you spending these days? >> it varies widely from district to district. it is one of the largest state programs in the grant allocation. no district has lost any money since i have become governor. the vast majority of additional dollars goes to those most in need. that is a break from the past. previously if you put money into the fund, it would be distributed as it had in the past. it doesn't make sense to do that when you realize you have much bigger problems in a much smaller number of districts that you have to find a way to turn around, and focusing on that is important. part of that is dollars. i am not saying every dollar has

wisely in connecticut by high-performing or low performing districts. we have to be accountable for how we spend those dollars going forward. >> what are peoples spending in hartford or new haven today? >> i have rounded numbers. depending on how you read it, we are spending in excess of $12,000 across the board. some districts are spending substantially more than that. some districts are spending a little less than that. if you look at the average, there are two different ways to measure it. we are spending a lot of money on education in connecticut. >> do you think that number ought to be higher across the board? >> i think it ought to be higher in certain places. different districts face different problems.

if you have a non-english learner population you have to bring along, don't be surprised you find smaller classrooms will be helpful, and smaller classrooms cost more money. a different model might not work better. if you are dealing with issues of poverty, and poverty as we know is concentrated in our society in certain districts. some of those are rural. many are urban. don't be surprised if different models need to be used, and in some cases those are expensive. on the other hand, we have to hold everyone accountable for how they spend every dollar and to make sure the dollars are being spent wisely. i referenced a little while ago

the 30 lowked at performing districts, in every district it was one that performed across the board. we found those models were not being replicated in all the schools in that same district. you have to get at that. you don't have as much money. that costs money or we cannot do it, or you could argue that is not a model that will work systemwide. we no longer school days work. that is why connecticut is in partnership on extending hours of operation. we have three school district actively engaged in adding 300 hours to the curriculum every year. i have been to two schools in the district, a great success. numbers rising much more rapidly than anywhere else, by and large.

on an average basis, better than anywhere else. test scores all saw increases. we have to replicate it as opposed to our failures. >> as you mentioned, one concern is what works. extend the time, additional dollars. in colorado a month ago there was a billion-dollar proposed levy by the state senator. it went down to a 2-1 defeat. you think that speaks to public appetite for additional dollars at this point? is that relevant? >> i have been governor for three years. if we hadn't done the things we did to support education, we would have lost thousands of teachers in the state of connecticut.

who would have lost thousands of professionals in our system. >> by doing the things to support education you mean? >> additional dollars and driving a reform agenda. doing both. going to a school system like new haven or bridgeport or new london or new britain and taking teachers out of the building and not replacing them is not a way you are going to drive higher achievement. we came up with a different model, and that was to concentrate where we are going to spend an additional dollars, with higher proven need. i think that is a big break with the past that isn't fully understood what the long-term implications are. >> one of the proposals you put forward is the expansion of pre- k. this has been a talking point nationally. i am curious what vision you have. >> i have been with pre-k a long time.

when i was mayor at stanford i chose to move stanford in the direction of being in a position to guarantee all four-year-old children -- of being in the direction to guarantee all four- year-old children. change the dynamic. we weren't going to be the educator of every child entering prekindergarten exactly the same way. we went to a hybrid model where we turned to a not-for-profit agency that has overseen childcare services in the community and said, we want you to run a program. we took an old building and retrofitted it so it could house 300 four-year-olds. we went into the community and got folks signed up. everyone who got signed up had to have some skin in the game. they had to have some money in

the pocket, but we made sure it was scaled to their income. we provided additional services. we help parents learn english. we provide medical services. we fed the kids. low and behold, it works. we know it works. longer school days, starting earlier. it all works. having a larger vocabulary when they walk into kindergarten leads to an additional success. it's less time spent catching up. i used to explain it the following way -- imagine you are a first-year teacher, and you go into a classroom, and half the kids have had a prekindergarten learning experience of quality. they know their letters and colors. they know their literacy skills, and the other half don't. then when you ask that teacher

what are you going to spend more time on, and the reality is we shouldn't ask the question. everybody should have that. we know it works. we know it is one way to close the gigantic achievement gap at the end of 13 years i closing it at the beginning. >> as mayor how did you find , resources for this? >> we changed the model so we can provide the experience to more children at less cost. when you think of most programs they are expensive models. it is the reason we have not expanded those models and most school district. it was too expensive. it is seen as a luxury. we require kindergarten through 12. we did not require pre-k.

once you change the model and get to a more cost effective one, if you can win that argument -- >> what are some suggestions to make it a more cost-effective model? >> it is simple biology. understand the given strength of three-year-olds and four-year- olds. they are not going to learn for eight hours straight. or six hours, or three hours. the day has to be broken up. a fair amount of the day is spent supporting learning but not necessarily in instruction. who is running the classroom, i think, is an effective and important issue. if you find a way to supervise those activities to be supportive of learning but not tie up the teacher for the entire day then you'd get a lot , more done. >> this means more adults who are not necessarily trained

teachers but supporting roles that are cheaper, basically. >> that is part of it. it also gives scheduling ability. if you have an all-day program paying everyone as a certified teacher for all the programs may not make sense. >> one last question, and then let's open it up. i am curious if there are any other takeaways from your time as mayor that have informed her thinking on education and the governor's mansion. >> we have to find a way to make educational spending more effective. when i became the mayor of stanford we had an i.t. department for the city. we had an i.t. department for the board of education. we had computers aging out before they were installed. there were not enough people to get them installed in schools. it happened in district after district around the country. we decided to put the efforts together and to work together,

and we lifted the technology integration. this was in the dark ages of 1995, 1996. we lifted the use of technology pre-significantly in a short amount of time. when i became mayor of the city of stanford, facilities. if you talk about communities, the single largest investment almost every community across the country has has been in schools. it is the physical infrastructure. it is the most expensive building. it has a lot of stuff in the building, but if you scratch the surface as i did, i realized the guy overseeing maintenance of buildings had a doctorate. -- doctorate in counseling. the fact there was not a single

architect or engineer who actually works for the system at that time. finding a way to professionalize that, to find a way to save money in the long run by plowing -- properly maintaining buildings allowed us to plow more into education, and we did that as well. >> let's open it up. be kind enough to identify your self by name and affiliation. as always, please actually ask a question. 15 seconds and if i don't see your question i will move to someone else. >> i remember when you were mayor and we visited stanford. my question goes back to the relationship between schools and general purpose. in stanford, you are one of the oraloral pioneers -- may

pioneers in pushing the kind of relationship you just discussed. my question relates to this philosophy, particularly in light of the changes. have you been able to take the initiatives at the state level, bringing juvenile justice and breaking down isolation of schools from general-purpose? -- general-purpose government? >> yes and no. some of it is you have to affect structural change. i will go back to early childhood education. we created an office of early childhood or in -- childhood. we took operations out of four different departments and put them in one office at the department of education, but now we have one at the department of education. we have it all together. that is going to allow us to bring a more efficient delivery

system on board for early childhood education. there is this dynamic between general government and education. one will pick on the other end point to the weaknesses of the other. it happens on a regular basis and trying to lift people to where they are actually working together is very difficult to do. i'm finding it more difficult to happen across the district and community lines than i would have thought. having said that, i think we are making progress. i think what is really going on is we are very dependent on property taxes in connecticut to support education. beyond the cost sharing dollars, everything else is tied to local property taxes. those are not growing anymore.

people are forced to find ways to save money and to work together. i think the folks who will lead this are looking at how do you support education? -- education when you're granta list is not growing? it is going to drive education. >> as far as funding in education, doesn't look like it is going to be flat, down, up? >> it's a little early to tell. this has been the slowest recovery from a recession in the post-world war ii era. the folks in washington seem to put the brakes on the economy every six months or so, so they are not helpful with respect to real growth in the economy. i think americans will put more money in education when it is doing better.

for when they confront the fact that the funding education is hurting. i think they are going to have bigger pressures. then, of course, you have legal requirements and constitutional requirements. we guarantee and education for every child. they have allowed for the growth of super education, overseeing about 41% of the kids in the greater hartford school district and surrounding districts putting them in other schools they would already be attending.

as a constitutional answer to an education problem. >> thank you, governor. i am a senior adviser to the education foundation. you opine that we know what works, yet there seems to be a consensus that the weakest link seems to be our secondary schools. the president announced a grant program. many people believe we are no longer meeting the needs of young people. are you trying to reinvent the high school in connecticut? >> i would say yes.

we have a number of initiatives doing that, including allowing high school students to take courses at college. in one case, co-locating schools on college campuses, or inviting them to have courses in the school. i think that all of that is important. i think we fail most of the kids in the early years. we pay a bigger price in the later years. a child not doing well in third grade, the chances for that child to be successful are low through middle school and high school. we have to do a better job i think we have to think about education differently. i think we have a lot of kids who are under challenge and a lot of kids who are over challenged because they didn't get the exposure they needed to

get. i think building into schools the ability to respond to those things i think is going to be an important in the future. i think driving advanced courses is going to be important. >> college completion rates have been garnering a lot of attention. i am curious if you have had a chance to tackle it. >> we are working on it. we have had to raise tuition. as there is less money coming in the door we require an additional contributions by students or parents. i will go back to washington. id